


Looking for a Landslide

by Gleennui



Category: Glee
Genre: Alive Finn Hudson, Army, Breathplay, Canonical Character Death - Finn Hudson, Fix-It, Friendly Fire, Friends to Lovers, Fuckurt Big Bang, M/M, Reunions, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 01:53:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5356502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gleennui/pseuds/Gleennui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Finn’s death, a grief-stricken Puck sets out to do one last thing for Finn: clear Christopher’s name. But the deeper Puck gets into his investigation, the more he realizes things aren't entirely what they seem. What started as a simple mission turns into layers of secrets–some, Puck quickly finds out, he’s been unknowingly perpetuating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking for a Landslide

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2015 [Fuckurt Big Bang Challenge](http://fuckurtbigbang.tumblr.com) on tumblr. 
> 
> [Artwork and fanmix](http://raving-liberal.livejournal.com/1014198.html) by raving_liberal

“It’s an act!” Puck screams, “It’s a goddamn motherfucking act, and none of you seem to care!”

Puck spins away from the plaque, almost knocking Tina over. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Rachel look like she’s about to reach for him before Kurt pulls her back. Everything’s blurry, and he spins again, lurching for the door. Somewhere behind him, someone--probably Blaine--is making a ‘tsk’ noise and murmuring something about a troubled past. Puck doesn’t know if Blaine means him or Finn and he doesn’t care, because his ears suddenly feel like they’re full of water and his palms are tingling and he makes it halfway down the hall before his vision closes in. 

Puck doesn’t lose consciousness--not really--but he’s out of it enough where it feels like no time at all passes before Beiste’s deep voice is near his ear and what feels like a paper cup of water is being pressed into his palm. He nods and sips the water before opening his eyes, but when he does blink them open, everything’s a little less blurry than before. Puck must look less out of it, too, because Beiste nods at him and pats him on the shoulder. 

“Gave me a scare there, Puckerman,” she says gently, and moves to sit next to him. “You want some company?” 

Puck nods gratefully, and Beiste sits all the way back against the classroom door. The two of them barely fit between the rows of lockers, but Puck’s grateful for the little bit of privacy. He’s not ready to face any of them yet, and he’s not sure he ever will be. Without Finn, there’s not really any point to Lima. Not anymore. 

“He was Finn,” Puck says, more to the empty hallway than Beiste, but she nods anyway. “He was Finn and they want to give him a fucking plaque. Like he’s some fucking curiosity the freshman will look at funny when they walk in there for the first time.” 

Beiste doesn’t say anything in return--just holds out her hand for Puck’s empty cup, which he hands over before continuing. 

“And that quote. Like he was an idiot. If that’s how they remember him, then they should just--” 

Puck stands, taking a few steps to catch his balance, and runs his hand through his hair. He’s not sure where to go from here, though he figures wherever it is, it isn’t the halls of McKinley. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Beiste stand, too, and walk over to him. 

“When you love somebody…” Beiste claps her hand to Puck’s bicep, and Puck almost smiles. Anyone else would have just patted him. “Sometimes it’s easier to be their only cheerleader than to try to show everyone else the routine.” 

Now Puck does smile, though it feels strange on his face. 

“I do look fucking fantastic in a skirt.” 

Beiste chuckles. “You gotta honor him in your own way. You’ll figure out what it is. Don’t worry about these people. You and me, we have to do things the way we know best. My old running back told me that once.” 

Puck laughs, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand, and doesn’t even start when Beiste pulls him into a sideways hug. 

“You gotta know how much he loved you, right?” Beiste’s voice sounds fierce next to Puck’s ear. “Don’t think he knew I knew, but you shoulda seen his face when...well.” She clears her throat. “You keep in touch, will ya?” 

Puck waits until she pulls back to smile and nod. “Maybe I’ll send you pictures of my pom poms.” 

Beiste’s eyes are red. “Just don’t ask me for advice on skirts.” She looks down at her shorts, and Puck laughs again, this time full and real. 

“Noted,” Puck salutes and heads back to his bike, making sure to avoid the choir room on the way. 

Puck feels a little lighter on his way back home, and when he runs up to his bedroom to pack a duffel, he thinks maybe it’s because, if nothing else, there is still something he can do for Finn. 

Lucky for Puck, his mom is at work, so he scribbles a note on the back of the electric bill and leaves in on the kitchen table. He’ll send her a text once he’s outside Lima, he figures, but just in case she doesn’t check her phone, at least she won’t worry. Much. Before he leaves, Puck ducks into his mother’s bedroom and drags the ancient strongbox out from the back of her closet. He pulls out every identification he can find,and folds them carefully before sliding the box back and covering it with the quilt he found it under. 

The next part’s going to be trickier, but he knows that Carole and Burt are in DC for the week, so he pulls into the Hudmels’ driveway, casually walking up to the side door like he belongs there. He lets himself in with the key he’d never gotten rid of, and heads straight for Carole’s office. Puck knows what he’s looking for; he and Finn had snooped just before graduation, looking for something--anything--to get some answers. He finds a bundle of papers in the back of Carole’s filing cabinet drawer, exactly where they left them, and tucks them into his backpack with his own documents. 

 

Puck hasn’t been in Finn’s room since after the funeral, when Carole and Burt acted like he wasn’t there and Kurt had picked through Finn’s belongings with what Puck thought looked an awful lot like casual disdain. But he needs to go in now, needs to make sure he has everything, because once he leaves Lima, he won’t be coming back. So Puck takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and turns the doorknob. 

Fuck. The reality of how much _Finn_ there is in the room hits Puck all at once. The air even feels heavy with it as he steps all the way in the room and closes the door. Except for the things Kurt picked through, everything looks the way it did before…

Puck knows exactly what he’s looking for and where he and Finn hid it, but he sits on Finn’s bed first, curling his hands in Finn’s sheets. None of this is fair. Finn was _good_. He was good in a way that most people can only hope to be. He was the _only_ good in Puck’s world for most of their lives. Puck lies down, burying his face in Finn’s pillow, and breathes in. 

The sob catches in his throat before Puck even realizes it was building in his chest, and he lets it go, lets himself cry into Finn’s pillow until his head is pounding and his eyes are burning. 

When he’s finally done, he doesn’t really feel measurably better than he did when he walked in Finn’s room, but he does feel like the crying had been a ritual that he’d just been waiting for. He swipes a forearm across his eyes and then crouches down next to Finn’s bed, peering underneath. The loose floorboard looks exactly the way they left it, so he crawls on his belly under the bed until he reaches it. It only takes a little wiggling before it pops free, and he reaches blindly under it, grabbing for the handful of documents they put there in the spring. 

Puck knows he’s running out of time before Carole comes home, but it still takes considerable effort to leave. There’s nothing he can take with him, and he’s not sure that Finn would want him to, even if there was anything left that would fit on his bike. So he lingers just a few minutes more, running his hands over Finn’s doorjam where they’d chipped a chunk of wood away tossing a football around junior year. 

“I love you, you know,” he says to the room, and then shrugs, because it feels both ridiculous and important at once. He’s not sure that if Finn were standing right in front of him, right now, he’d even be able to say it, but he hopes Finn knew. If nothing else, doing this for Finn sure feels like a declaration. 

He heads east, toward the address on the top of the list they’d made. The first and most logical contact lives in the Baltimore area, so Puck drives until well after midnight, finally pulling off at a roadside motel somewhere in western Pennsylvania. The desk clerk looks like he’s about 85, and he shoves a key at Puck without really looking at him, pawing at the cash Puck put on the desk and counting it before nodding. 

Puck drives over so he can park in front of his room and double-checks his backpack to make sure everything’s exactly where it should be. The room is just as gross as Puck figured it would be, but he pulls the bedspread off and sprawls on the sheets, spreading everything out in front of him for the first time all together. The first thing he picks up are the letters they’d found in Carole’s office, taped behind that painting with the two old-fashioned girls on it that she’d always showed to company. He still remembers Finn’s face when the painting had fallen and they’d run into the office, sheepish that their hallway football game had broken something _else_ in the Hudmel house. Puck had pried the envelope free, figuring if Carole ever wondered out loud why it looked different taped back on, he could honestly tell her Finn had nothing to do with it. 

Puck runs his hands over the looseleaf, pressing down the curling edges. The guy probably had little kids at the time, and that thought makes Puck smile, despite everything. They’d only read the letters twice; Finn had been too nervous that Carole would notice and Puck wasn’t about to add to Finn’s anxiety over what they’d found by forcing him to chance it. But Puck mostly remembers it by heart. He’s not sure you forget something like that quickly. 

  
_Carole,_

_There’s nothing I can say here that’s going to make this letter any easier, but hopefully knowing the truth will give you some kind of peace._

_Chris and I knew each other almost the entire time Chris was enlisted. We had the happy luck of being in the same BCT class at Fort Benning, and then stationed together at Fort Campbell. I don’t want to assume that Chris told you about me, but I hope he did, because I still talk about HIM all the time. He was the best friend I’ve ever had in the Army, and I’ve been in now eight years._

_But because he’s my best friend, and because he talked about you and little Finn so much I felt like I knew you, you deserve to know the truth._

_Chris didn’t overdose. He didn’t even use. In fact, the hardest thing I ever saw him take was a couple shots of Jim Beam. The dishonorable discharge and everything they told you after was a bald-faced lie._

_We had gone with a couple other soldiers to a KD range to get some target practice in. I still don’t know for sure how it happened. Maybe the PFC was goofing around. Maybe something startled him. But his gun fired directly to the left of him. Right where Chris was standing._

_He loved you and Finn. He wasn’t able to tell me that after, and I don’t want you haunted by the details, but he didn’t need to say it in that moment. He loved you both every day._

_You deserve to know this. Not just because you’re entitled to benefits you probably never got, but because Chris’s legacy was more than just a fake story and a cover-up. I’ve lost buddies to addiction, and there’s no shame or lack of honor in it, but that wasn’t Chris’s story._

_I hope this helps you and Finn heal in even a small way. Know that you’re in my thoughts daily._

_Take care,_

_Sgt. William Ames_  
(Bill)  


Puck folds the letter back up and smooths it out carefully, putting it back in the envelope and laying it next to the other ones. He’ll never forget the look on Finn’s face the first time they found it. Puck’s not sure he’ll ever get over it. It was a mix of betrayal, relief, and fresh grief, and it stayed with Finn up until the day he…

Puck shakes his head. The other two letters are less earth-shattering; just asking about Finn and wanting Carole to keep in touch. Puck had no idea if Carole ever did keep in touch and Finn never remembered someone named Bill ever calling the house or coming around. Puck double-checks the address in his phone and puts the letters back in his backpack. 

The rest of the papers are actual official documents, and Puck reads through them, one by one, one more time before putting them back in the ziploc bag he’d snagged from the Hudmels’ before he’d left. There’s the dishonorable discharge, like Puck had expected, and Christopher’s death certificate, which Puck handles almost reverently, feeling a clench in his gut at the idea that there was one of those floating around for Finn somewhere. Because of the dishonorable discharge, Carole and Finn hadn’t gotten military death benefits, but there’s a letter from the Army expressing condolences for Christopher’s death that makes Puck roll his eyes. 

“I’m giving this a shot,” Puck says out loud. “I’m pretty sure this is what you wanted. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.” He strips off his jeans and studies the contents of his backpack. He’s going to need to go to Kmart or something if this takes longer than a few days, because he’d only packed one change of clothes. 

Puck slips under the sheet, shivering but not really loving the idea of pulling up the bedspread. He closes his eyes and turns on his side, toward the middle of the bed. “I wish you were here doing this with me. I mean here like,” Puck runs his hand over the empty spot of the bed. “ _Here_.” He shrugs, even though no one can see him. “Sometimes I think we were heading that way before…. Well, anyway. I miss you. I thought maybe I’d miss you less as time went on or something, but I think I miss you more now than I did when I found out.” Puck inches toward the middle of the bed even more, curling up on himself. “Nothing feels like it’s supposed to feel anymore. I don’t know if that makes sense. Did you know that my plans always included you? I hope you did. I hope you always knew that you were pretty much it for me. Even though we weren’t…. I would have done anything for you.” Puck’s eyes are burning now, and his throat is thick, so he stops talking and lies in the silence.

He must lie there long enough that he eventually falls asleep, because the next thing Puck realizes, his alarm is going off and there’s just enough light coming through the cracked window to let Puck know it’s morning. He heads out to his bike, noticing that the same desk clerk is still sitting in his chair, scowling at two men who seem to be asking a question. The ride to Silver Spring is mostly uneventful and almost pretty, with the leaves turning all through West Virginia, so the end effect is that Puck’s in a weirdly good mood by the time he coasts into the driveway matching the address they’d double-checked from the letters.

“Let’s do this,” Puck mutters, and knocks on the door, holding the letters tightly in his free hand. A woman around Puck’s Ma’s age opens the door, looking friendly but confused. She glances at the letters in Puck’s hand like she expected them to be a clipboard or order form of some kind. 

“Can I...is there something I can help you with?” Her smile is warm, despite the fact that she clearly thinks Puck is trying to sell her something. 

“Ma’am.” Puck knows that shmoozing adults has never been a problem for him, but he’s never had to talk about _this_ with one. Even being a legal adult isn’t helping this time. “My name is Noah Puckerman. I’m friends with the Hudson family. From Lima. Christopher was--”

“Oh! Pucker-- are you Puck?” She tucks a piece of chin-length hair behind her ear and opens the door. “Come in, sweetie. Bill’s just in here.”

Puck starts at the familiarity but follows the woman into a small but nicely decorated house. He tugs off his bike gloves and flexes his fingers to warm them, still holding the letters. The woman leads him into a living room where everything matches, including the tv. There’s a guy in a sweatshirt and jeans sitting on the couch, and he looks up when Puck and the woman walk in. 

“This is Noah Puckerman, honey. Puck?” 

The guy--Bill, Puck figures--stands up and wipes his hands on his jeans. Puck notices then that Bill had been eating chips out of the bag, and it’s weirdly calming, somehow, that this mystery guy in this nicely decorated house would still hang out on the couch and eating chips without a napkin. 

“Puck!” Bill extends a hand that Puck finds out still has chip-grease on it when he accepts. “Bill Ames. Nice of you to visit.” He turns back to the couch, gesturing for Puck to follow. “You want to talk about Chris?” He looks almost like he’s been expecting Puck, which isn’t possible, but Puck can’t figure out what else the easy smile and lack of questions could possibly mean. 

“Sergeant.” Puck nods. “I have these.”

Bill waves his hand before running it through his crew cut. “It hasn’t been _that_ long since I read them, Puck.” He chuckles. “I’m old but not that old yet.” 

Puck frowns a little, because 18 years is a long time for anyone to have memorized a letter they hadn’t seen since, but he brushes it off. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Puck laughs a little, holding up his hands. “Just trying to do right by my friend here. Is there anything else you can tell me?” 

“Well, Puck. Chip?” Bill holds the open bag out to Puck, who shakes his head quickly. “You probably-- or maybe you don’t. There’s not a whole lot I can say out loud.” He nods his head toward the window, and Puck raises an eyebrow. “There were only a couple of us there that day, so they’d be able to narrow it down real fast.” Puck nods, even though he didn’t know that until just now.

“Can I ask you something?” Puck waits for Bill to nod before he continues. “What was Finn’s dad like?” 

Bill smiles and leans back against the couch. “Constantly cracking jokes. We were practically kids and he had one hell of a goofy sense of humor.” 

“Fart jokes?” Puck asks, snorting. 

“And other bodily functions,” Bills says, and laughs to himself. “Tormented our buddy with a whoopie cushion for _months_. Still have no clue how he snuck it into mess.”

Puck’s full-out laughing now. “Fifth grade. The only time Finn ever _really_ got in trouble with a teacher when we were kids was the week he discovered armpit fart noises and made them every time Ms. Hannaford was writing on the board.”

“Chip off the old block,” Bill says. “Maybe there’s a Hudson Fart Gene.”

“If anyone’d have a fart gene, it’d be the Hudsons,” Puck says.

“Good to know tradition lives on. Now, I’m sure Finn has this still, but I’m going to write down a name and address for you. He’s active duty, so you’ll have to meet him off government property, but I’ll let him know I’m sending a friend over. And you can--and should--just call him ‘Donald’ when you address him.” Bill pulls a spiral notebook and pen out of the side table drawer and starts writing. 

“Sergeant, uh,” Puck rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “Finn’s not--”

“It’s fine. Really.” Bill smiles, and it looks a little sad. “You don’t have to explain it to me. I know.” 

“Uh,” Puck starts, taking the paper Bill holds out to him. 

“Don’t worry too much about meeting with Donald. He’s on our side. Promise.” Bill winks at Puck. “I’m sure you know that, but just in case you didn’t get the memo. And I’ll let him know you’re going to stop over, too.” 

Puck nods warily, trying to process everything that’s happened in the last five minutes. “Before I go...” He pulls the organized documents out of his backpack and hands the death certificate to Bill. “Have you seen this?” 

Bill squints down at the certificate for what feels like a full minute, his eyebrows scrunched together, before he sighs loudly. “I hadn’t seen it in print, no,” he says. “I’ve known about it for years, obviously, but seeing it in black and white…” He shakes his head and hands it back to Puck. “You’re doing a real good thing. Chris would be so damn proud.” 

Puck just nods and stands at that, not trusting himself to say anything. Once everything is back in place and his bag is zipped, he shakes Bill’s hand, making sure Bill has all Puck’s contact information “just in case.” Puck doesn’t want to think for very long about what that means, but Bill, to his credit, doesn’t ask. 

The ride from Silver Spring to Hyattsville, where this Donald apparently has a place, takes about half an hour. Puck spends the time going over his visit with Bill, which won’t stop nagging at him. It was strange in a way Puck can’t put his finger on, including how they both acted like they didn’t just know him but were expecting him to show up at their door, unannounced, holding sensitive letters from 1999. 

“What’d I stumble into?” he mutters against the wind. “Wish you could help me figure this out. We might have a second mystery to solve. Feel like Scooby Doo or some shit.” Puck snorts. “I wonder who we’d all be.” 

Bill had mentioned on Puck’s way out the door that Donald wouldn’t be home until close to noon. It’s not quite 11:30, so Puck heads for a nearby diner and sits with a cup of coffee and a reuben for almost 45 minutes, mostly just staring out the window and picking at the sandwich, which is actually pretty good and definitely better than anything he can get in Lima. 

Two refills later, Puck can’t stall any more, and he tosses a 20 on the table, heading out before he can get change. “You know you and I are Shaggy and Fred,” he says, shouldering his backpack. “We always make the best team.” He revs his bike and pulls away from the parking lot. “I’d even put up with your dog.” 

 

Donald’s house is even smaller than Bill’s, but Puck had seen a For Sale sign just down the street with a price listed at $250,000, so maybe all the houses around here are small so people can actually afford to buy them. Puck decides at the last minute to pull his bike around the back. If this thing turns out to be as weird as it feels, Puck figures sliding under the radar a little can’t hurt. 

The back door’s already open when Puck turns around from his bike, and a black guy with greying hair and the biggest guns Puck’s ever seen is standing in the doorway. Puck realizes he must be staring, but the guy just raises an eyebrow in response. 

“When you’re done standing there, I’ll be in the kitchen,” he says, before disappearing from the doorway. Puck shakes his head clear and follows him, squaring his shoulders. The kitchen’s almost completely empty. Yeah, there’s a fridge and oven and stuff, but other than a wooden table and two chairs that look like the garage sale furniture Puck’s Ma bought one year, it doesn’t look like anyone _uses_ the kitchen for anything. The guy--Donald, Puck assumes--is blocking the kitchen doorway on the other side, so Puck doesn’t dare try to look into the rest of the house, but something tells him it’s just as unused-looking. 

“You’re with the Hudsons.” Donald says. It’s not a question. 

Puck nods. “Noah Puckerman. Puck.” 

Donald sits in one of the chairs and stares at Puck until Puck sits down, too. “Puckerman. I know.” He holds out his hand, and Puck’s not sure if he’s supposed to shake it or not. “Let me see.” 

“Oh, sh-- right. Sorry.” Puck pulls out the bag and hands the entire thing to Donald, who pulls everything out and lays in on the table. No one says anything for long minutes while Donald frowns down at the documents and letters, moving his lips as he reads. Puck’s not sure what to do during the silence. Playing with his phone seems rude, and the last thing Puck wants to do is break some kind of Army politeness protocol or something, so he just looks around the unused room and thinks about Finn. Donald would like Finn way better than he seems to like Puck, Puck figures. Finn could make anyone smile. Puck can’t exactly talk to Finn out loud right now, the way he’s been doing, but he thinks, _You’d get a kick out of this guy. You’d have to pretend like his guns aren’t as awesome as mine, but you were always good at making me feel good. I hope I was like that for you, too, but maybe this will help if I wasn’t._

“Everything happened the way Sergeant Ames described. I can’t say anything more about that day,” Donald says, and looks stone-faced across at Puck for so long that Puck wonders if he’s supposed to just take his papers and leave. “Why are you here?”

“Sir?” 

Donald folds his arms and looks at Puck again, apparently not planning on elaborating on his question, so Puck continues anyway, even though he’s not sure entirely what Donald means. 

“Finn--Christopher’s son--needs me to do this for his father, sir.” Puck starts to shrug and crosses his arms across his chest instead. “It’s not r-- with all due respect, it’s not right what they did to him.”

Donald nods. “I’m not going to send you empty-handed, Puckerman.” He leans down, and Puck realizes that there’s a leather briefcase next to Donald’s chair. “Share this with Hudson and no one else until you speak to this woman,” Donald holds up a business card toward Puck before slipping it into a thick manilla envelope. “Do we have an understanding?” 

Puck doesn’t bother correcting Donald about Finn. He just nods and lets Donald lead him back to the door. Before Donald can open it, though, Puck turns back to him, setting his jaw. 

“Finn’s mom worked really hard,” he says, and Donald raises an eyebrow. “They never had a ton of money, but she worked a _lot_. Missed Finn’s school things sometimes, even. They really could have used those benefits.”

Donald’s face softens for the first time since Puck pulled into the driveway, and he almost looks like he’s smiling in a sad way. “There’s a way for Finn to get unofficial compensation,” he says, lowering his voice. “Everything he’ll need to--” Donald lowers his voice even more, almost whispering now so Puck has to lean in to hear him. “--convince them is in that packet.” 

Puck shakes his head. He was doing fine. Doing this for Finn was giving him focus. He hadn’t cried since he left Finn’s bedroom. But hearing Donald talk about Finn over and over like Finn is still here all beautiful and good and able to do something about this is too much for Puck. He can’t play this emotionless standoff with Donald anymore. 

“Look, Finn isn’t--”

“I know.” Donald claps a hand on Puck’s shoulder and Puck winces despite himself. “I hear the Hampton Inn at the Convention Center is nice. That,” he gestures to the envelope, “is going to take a few days.” 

“I’ve only got a couple hundred, but thanks,” Puck manages a smile. “I’ll find a Best Western or something.” He mentally calculates that he’s going to need those extra clothes he’d been trying to avoid, plus meals for several days, unless the hotel has a continental breakfast he can stock up on. He’s still crunching numbers in his head when Donald squeezes his shoulder. 

“Why don’t you check the packet before you decide.” 

Puck raises an eyebrow and nods, not really wanting to believe that Donald means what Puck thinks he might mean. Donald lifts his hand and reaches behind Puck, opening the door and nodding toward Puck’s bike. Puck turns without another look back and gets on his bike, heading right back to the diner. 

The server doesn’t seem surprised to see Puck, which is a point in her favor, Puck thinks, and he slides into the same booth from before, kicking his feet up on the seat across from him. The packet’s in his backpack now, which he tucks between himself the wall. He’ll need more coffee before he can peek at it. Puck orders another cup, plus some cherry pie he’d seen in the spinning dessert thing, mentally anticipating trying the chocolate cake after. 

He must look like someone who could use the sugar, because the server leaves an entire can of whipped cream with him when she brings the pie, winking before she goes. Puck gets halfway through his pie and into his second cup when he finally sighs and tugs the envelope out. 

“Fuck!” He slaps his hand over his mouth and looks around, but the only person who seemed to have noticed was his server, who’s giggling into her order pad. He peeks into the envelope again and blinks. He wasn’t seeing things; there are wads of cash tucked in next to the packet Puck had seen Donald put in there. Puck doesn’t want to stare too long, but it looks like maybe a couple thousand in 50s and 100s. Part of Puck wants to get back on his bike and return it to Donald, but besides probably being unsafe, he’s not sure that Donald’s even still at the house, which hadn’t looked like much but a place for meetings like the one Puck had.

“This is some secret agent shit,” Puck says under his breath. “You’d love this, Shaggy.” 

“On me.” 

Puck looks up from his daze and closes the envelope as quickly as he can without looking suspicious. The server’s putting the chocolate cake plus a slice of what looks like peanut butter pie in front of Puck. She smiles wryly. “There’s more where that came from.” 

Puck grins back, and he knows it probably looks desperately thankful but he doesn’t care. She refills his cup before he goes, too, and Puck knows he’ll be able to sit in the booth until it’s time to find a hotel, if he wants. He lets himself finish the cake before he checks the envelope again, looking around periodically. He tells himself that it’s just people-watching, but a very small part of him has felt Finn with him so strongly during the trip that he wouldn’t be surprised to see him walk through the door at any point. 

There’s the business card Donald had held out, and it’s apparently for an Ellen Lawson. There’s nothing else on the card but an address--no title or affiliation, which Puck would think was weird if he hadn’t already had one of the weirdest days anyone can have. A Google search of the address turns up nothing but a business park just west of the Pentagon. 

“Shit, I’m in this deep,” Puck says, rubbing his eyes. He’s not sure how much sleep he’d managed the night before, but he doesn’t think anything would have been enough. “You know I’d do this for you again, though. Even if you spent the next week thanking me in armpit farts.” 

The packet’s a little overwhelming and more than a little scary, which is what Puck’s hoping Ellen Lawson is supposed to help him with. There’s a lot of shit about backdoor compensation, which Puck almost makes a joke out loud about before he realizes where he is, and “circumventing proceedings.” What Puck can figure out after a solid 45 minutes of reading is that if they want Christopher’s discharge removed and back death benefits for Carole reinstated, they’re going to have to get them quietly and, from what Puck can tell, illegally. 

It’s not the worst thing Puck’s ever heard of happening, and if someone had told him that the Army pulls this shit with people, he wouldn’t have been surprised. Hell, it’s some kind of damn miracle there’s a way to do this at all, considering they’re dealing with a 20-year-old coverup. Satisfied that he’s read enough of the packet for someone who’s been sitting at a diner booth for three hours and had five cups of coffee without a bathroom break, Puck carefully puts everything away and takes his backpack with him to the bathroom. When he returns, he’s feeling lighter than he has since the service, and he eats his peanut butter pie happily, grinning and saluting the server when she walks past him in street clothes out the door. 

Puck uses his own money to pay the bill, leaving the amount of the extra desserts in tips for the server, and heads in the direction of the Hampton Inn. Just in case someone’s watching Puck’s financials, he can’t deposit the cash in his checking account, and carrying around so much of it seems like a stupid idea, too, so he might as well take Donald’s advice and get a decent room. 

The clerk doesn’t bat an eye when Puck puts down a cash deposit for a room, which Puck had figured might be the case. but he’s way friendlier to Puck than the creepy motel clerk had been. He explains to Puck that there’s a full hot breakfast every morning, and Puck figures that he’ll be able to divert breakfast money into clothes and maybe some gas to get back. If he can, he’d like to give the leftover money from Donald back to Carole. It’s the least he can do. Maybe then Finn can get more than a fucking plaque. 

“We couldn’t have afforded this,” Puck says, putting his backpack on the luggage rack and looking out the window at the city--district? “It’s kind of weird staying somewhere so nice when I figured the first time I’d get to do it with would be with you.” Puck watches couples and groups of friends walk on the sidewalk, in and out of restaurants and stores, and he’s hit with such a feeling of loneliness that he has to walk away. 

“Look at that big bed.” Puck smirks a little, but it’s sad. “We never got to do anything in a bed together. Hell, we hadn’t even slept in a bed together since we were 10, and even that was two years later than your mom said we could.” He sits down on the edge of the bed and flips through the leather-covered amenities book. “Hey, there’s an indoor pool! Should I get a suit at KMart? Is it weird I just asked you like you were going to answer me?” Puck shrugs and grabs his backpack. He might as well get everything he’ll need for a short stay before it gets dark. 

“Oh well. If it’s weird, I guess I’m weird. I’ve been called worse things. You remember.” 

There’s no KMart anywhere near the hotel, but there’s a Wal-Mart in walking distance, so Puck heads over there. He buys another pair of jeans and a few more t-shirts, boxers, and socks, plus a pair of swim trunks, in case he does decide to go swimming. A toothbrush and a package of razors later, and he’s heading back to the hotel. He realizes halfway back to his room that he’s going to need to leave most of his purchases in DC, but there’s nothing he can do about it unless he gets one of those giant camping backpacks. 

“You’d laugh at me until you peed yourself again, like at Artie’s sleepover in 7th grade. I still haven’t told anyone.” 

The swim is exactly what Puck needed. It works out the tension in his shoulders and back from the long rides and stress of the past two days. There’s a family swimming across the pool from him, and the kids keep dog-paddling over and trying to play. 

“You’re it!” the older one calls, tapping Puck on his elbow. He glances up at one of the mothers, who looks like she’s trying not to laugh. 

“Sorry,” she says. “They think everyone wants to play with them.” She holds her hands out to the side. “I can’t blame them. They’re pretty persuasive.” 

Puck laughs. “Career in politics?”

“We wouldn’t complain,” she says. “Our country could use the wisdom of seven-year-olds.” 

“They remind me of my best friend and me,” Puck says, grinning. “We could shmooze anyone out of anything.” 

The woman shakes her head. “Well, you look like you turned out okay,” she teases. “I’ll have high hopes for the girls. What about your friend?”

“He’s uh,” Puck looks over to where the girls are taking turns pushing each other into the pool. “He’s the best. I’m really really lucky.” 

When Puck looks back at the woman, she’s obviously hiding a smile behind her hand, and he chuckles. Even with Finn gone, Puck can’t hide it. He’s amazed he ever could. 

On the way back to his room, Puck stops in the lounge for coffee. While the Keurig hisses, Puck looks down at the floor, trying not to drip pool water and covering up what he does. He’s just kicking away an especially large puddle when he hears as “Oh, _shit_!” and the sound of a heavy door slam. Puck looks up suddenly but there’s no one there; just the sound of someone running up a stairwell. 

Puck shakes his head, trying to shake the sound out, too, but the voice had struck something in him, and he’s suddenly jittery, like he’d already chugged the coffee he’s holding. He dumps it in the small garbage next to the counter and heads right to the elevator. Something is making him want to pace, and he should probably do that in his room and not in front of the nice clerk. 

By the time Puck takes a long hot shower, gulping deep breaths of steamy air and letting the white noise lull him, he’s feeling a little better. He towel-dries while he’s walking out of the bathroom, and crawls into bed still damp. 

“I think I’m hearing things now,” he says. “Or something. What does that mean? I’d feel a lot better about hallucinating if you were here.” Puck pulls the covers up under his chin. “I met  
two women with twins today. Twin girls. It’s dumb, but I was thinking about if we had had kids. I mean,” Puck snorts, “We would’ve had to start dating first, but once we’d done that, we never would’ve broken up. Like ever.” He stretches out completely, moaning when his joints crack. 

“We would’ve been good dads, you and me. Would’ve spoiled the kids. You know you’d have gotten roped into tea parties. You’d look so hot in a tiara. You’d look hot in anything.”

Puck runs his hand down his stomach and strokes lightly at the base of his cock. “I used to watch you all the time. I guess for anyone else it’d be creepy, but it was you and me. I’d watch your hands a lot. Thought about them all over me.” He loosely circles his cock and starts stroking. “They’re so big. You could have held my wrists in one of them.” His breathing is a little shallower now, and he tightens his hand. “Could have put them around my neck, too. I would’ve let you. Not that I would’ve had a choice.” 

He brings his free hand up to his neck and just rests it there, his palm against the warm slope of his throat and his pulse thrumming under his fingers. “Your hand is so much bigger, but this’s all I’ve got.” Puck squeezes, just enough to feel a pleasant pressure radiating up through his face. “You could’ve had one big hand around my cock and one right here. Just like this.” He moves his hand faster, and he’s almost shocked how hard he is already. Puck tightens his other hand even more, and his pulse gets quicker and more insistent against his fingertips. He’s taking quick, shallow breaths, drawing out the spinning buzz in his head as long as possible. 

“You would have watched me,” he gasps out, “Watched my eyelids flutter. Watched-- I wouldn’t have fought you. Just let you drain me.” He’s close now, feeling the buzz at the base of his cock match the one in his head. He tightens both hands as hard as he can, cutting off his air while his other hand pulls at his cock way rougher than he usually likes. He shouldn’t still be able to grip so hard around his throat as he feels himself slipping away, but he can, and he comes hard just as his vision is blacking out, the orgasm feeling like it’s everywhere at once. 

“Fuck. Finn,” he rasps out when he comes to, saying it before he can even take deep breaths again. “Fuck, I miss you so much.” The tears come easily now, stinging-hot in his eyes and down his face. There’s no emptiness to his purpose in DC--he’s still as committed as he ever was to getting justice for Finn and his dad--but he’s lonelier than he’s been in weeks. Something feels _off_ , and it’s been feeling more and more that way since he left Lima. He just wishes he could put his finger on it.

The packet had said that Ellen would only be at the address on the card between two and three in the afternoon, so Puck doesn’t bother setting an alarm, but his pounding headache wakes him up anyway. He groans, pulling his pillow over his head, and then winces when he realizes his throat is scratchy, too. Breakfast is served until 10, and a one-eyed squint at his phone tells Puck it’s just after nine, so he rolls himself off the bed and stumbles into the bathroom. His face is puffy, with bags under his eyes that hurt when he pokes at them, though he pokes at them a few extra times for good measure.

Puck tugs on his new jeans and one of the t-shirts, barely remembering to pull the tag off before he puts it on, and shuffles down to breakfast. They must have just refreshed the pans before he came down, because everything is full and steaming hot. Puck helps himself to piles of scrambled eggs, bacon, and whole wheat toast, topping his plate off with a muffin and a container of yogurt. He’s just found an empty table as far away from people as possible and is heading back for coffee when he hears _another_ “shit!” It’s hissed this time, and when Puck turns in the direction of the noise, the only person around is a guy sitting at a booth by himself, reading the paper. Puck shrugs and pours his coffee, loading it up with cream and the little packets of raw sugar that never actually dissolve in the coffee. On Puck’s walk back to his table, he glances over at the guy with the paper again, and this time, he does a double-take. 

The paper guy looks like he hasn’t moved a muscle since Puck walked by the first time. In fact, he’s still not moving at all. Puck looks around. If there’s some weird _Weekend at Bernie’s_ shit going on, he’s not going to be the one to call attention to it. He takes a step closer to the guy, but that’s when _he_ freezes. The paper’s covering the guy’s entire face and upper body, but his hands--they’re _Finn’s_ hands. Puck know’s it’s ridiculous, bordering on crazy, but those are Finn’s hands right in front of him, holding the front page of the Washington Post. He takes one more step closer, not even daring to breathe, and looks again. Yep, definitely Finn’s hands, down to the scar on his right knuckle from when he slipped and put his hand through the sliding glass door of Puck’s apartment in fourth grade. Puck concedes that it may have been less slipping and more sliding across the kitchen floor in fuzzy socks. But there’s the scar, Finn’s scar, on Finn’s hand. Puck realizes he’s still standing in the middle of the breakfast area, staring, when a family with about six kids barrels by him. By the time he focuses back on the Finn-hands, the spell feels broken, and he walks regretfully back to his breakfast, shoveling the mountains of food in his mouth and barely tasting them while he tries hard not to look back in the direction of the hands. 

It’s not possible that Finn’s hands would be in the lobby of the Hampton Inn in Washington DC. Finn’s gone. Puck was at the funeral. He saw the ashes. He comforted Carole. There’s no possible way that anything resembling any part of Finn could be here. But Puck knows what he saw and he’d know Finn’s hands blindfolded, so the only likely answers are that Finn is alive and having breakfast right near Puck, or that Puck has somehow also died and he and Finn are stuck in a suspended animation where there’s unlimited scrambled eggs and raw sugar packets everywhere. 

Puck doesn’t come up with anything conclusive by the time breakfast is over, but he does eat almost everything on his plate, and by the time he walks past the booth, the Finn-hands are gone, so he considers all of that a win of sorts. He spends the rest of the time between his sluggish walk back to his room and when he needs to leave to meet Ellen folding and unfolding his six pieces of clothing and hiding and unhiding the cash around the room, constantly second-guessing himself about how secure, exactly, it is to leave over a thousand dollars in a hotel room unattended. 

“I think this might actually be happening,” Puck says, walking out to his bike. “I never really got why people hoped their loved ones were still around after they died, but I think I understand now.” He pulls out onto 6th street, waving to the diplomat car who lets him in. “It feels like you’re constantly here.” 

The office park is only supposed to be a nine-minute drive away, but Puck sits in traffic for over half an hour before his phone buzzes at his destination. “We wouldn’t have ever moved here,” he mutters. 

The sign on the door doesn’t list an “Ellen” at all, but the packet had said it wouldn’t, so Puck walks into what is supposed to be a CPA office, and heads right for the reception desk. Taking a deep breath, he recites the request on the instructions to the cheerful-looking receptionist. 

“I’m here to see Miss Lawson for an audit check.” 

The receptionist chirps for him to have a seat, and it’s barely a minute later when a short woman with long blonde hair gestures for him to follow her. She leads him into a completely unremarkable-looking office at the end of the suite, but when she closes the door behind him, Puck can see there’s some kind of soundproofing on the back of it. He sits down in the chair across from her desk and waits while she shuffles some papers. There are black boxes on the top shelf of a bookcase--jammers, Puck thinks--and he can see when he looks closely that the laptop on Ellen’s desk isn’t even turned on. 

“Thank you for meeting with me, Noah,” Ellen says, and it’s warm and inviting. Puck relaxes almost immediately.“I should probably be thanking you, Miss Lawson,” Puck says, pulling the packet out of the envelope and handing it over before she can ask. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next, but Donald said you could help?” 

Ellen hasn’t stopped smiling since she called Puck back, and she keeps smiling while she reads the paperwork. “Like I said the other day, this is surprisingly cut-and-dried, Noah,” she says. “We have a written witness statement within ten years of the incident, which is more than most of these appeals.” Puck has to bite back a smirk at the way the says “appeals.” Like this is an official court process. “As you’ve probably heard, I’m told we should be able to get at least one additional signed statement, and if you promise not to ask how it’s going to be obtained, I’ll promise I can have it done for you before you head back home.” 

Puck nods and this time does smirk a little. This is his kind of justice. 

“We work entirely pro bono,” Ellen continues. “As I’m sure you can imagine, most families who seek out, uh, back channels are not in a position to be giving a percentage of resurrected benefits.” Puck nods at that, because he feels like he probably should acknowledge that she’s 100% right about Carole and what she can afford. “We do, however, require that you sign a confidentiality agreement. On the honor system, of course.” She smiles, and Puck smiles back, nodding more vigorously. “This is the last piece of information we needed, so you can go ahead and sign that today, and then we’ll just ask that you stay in the area for two more nights in case we need anything last-minute from you. Will that be a problem?”

Puck shakes his head, thinking about the money he’d ended up hiding in $200 chunks in the pockets of his new clothes. 

“Good!” Ellen exclaims, and bends down, reappearing with an accordion folder and a pen. “I’m going to just need you to sign here,” she pulls a piece of paper out of the folder and sets it in front of Puck. “Right below Mr. Hudson’s signature.” 

Puck frowns at her, pretty sure she must have said the wrong name since they’d been talking about Finn’s dad, but when he looks where she’s pointing, he freezes, a rush of hot-cold running through him all at once. 

Because right above where Ellen’s finger is, in handwriting Puck’s known for 13 years, is Finn’s signature, and the date next to his name is October 4th, 2013. Yesterday.

Puck has no idea how long he stares at the familiar scribble--the way the “F” looks more like an “X” with a loop on the bottom and the way the crossbar of the “H” stretches across the “udson” in a straight line--but Ellen doesn’t pull away, and when he finally lifts the pen in a shaky hand to sign, she’s still holding the paper for him.

“I have some water,” she says gently, taking the paper away. She fills a paper cup from a water cooler Puck hadn’t noticed before and presses it into Puck’s hand. Puck sips numbly, still staring at the spot on the desk where the paper’d been. He forces himself to breathe, some part of his brain aware he can’t sit forever in a chair in a dummy office created to illegally circumvent the armed forces. If that’s Finn’s signature--and there’s _no_ part of his brain that isn’t positive that was Finn’s signature--then that means those were Finn’s hands, which means that somehow, in some way Puck doesn’t really understand, Finn is _alive_. And not just alive but staying at Puck’s hotel and eating breakfast 20 feet from Puck. 

When Puck finally looks back up, Ellen is still watching him, smiling the same warm smile from before. It should bother Puck, the constant smiling, but it seems genuine, and it’s actually making Puck feel better. He thanks Ellen with another promise to stay in DC for another full 48 hours, and manages to leave the office without incident. He needs to get back to the hotel as quickly as possible so he can figure out what the hell is going on and find Finn. Either order would be fine. 

By some stroke of luck, the ride back to the hotel is at least half shorter than the ride there, and Puck’s back and up in his room within the time it took him to get to Ellen’s. The money is still in all of Puck’s pockets, and he folds a couple hundreds into his wallet. The restaurant downstairs doesn’t open until five, according to the hotel channel, so Puck paces back and forth in front of his window, peering down onto the street on every fifth pass or so. 

If Finn’s staying in Puck’s hotel, which he seems to be, then at least Puck’s narrowed down Finn’s location to one _building_ , but the Hampton Inn here is impressively gigantic, nothing like the ones in Ohio, and he could walk up and down every hall all day, calling Finn’s name, and still maybe not find him. 

Puck considers for a minute trying to just text Finn’s old number, but he’s pretty sure Carole deactivated it or something, since Finn was on her plan. And he doesn’t even know if Carole _knows_ that Finn’s alive, and he can’t exactly call her and say “Oh hey, by the way, I stole a bunch of important papers from your office and took them to Washington and I found out that the son you thought was dead was actually one step ahead of me this whole time. Can I have his number?” 

Puck sighs and falls onto his bed, face-first. He’s maybe hundreds to thousands of feet away from something he’d thought was never ever going to happen, and he can’t get to it. He groans, kicking his feet like a little kid. Of all the unfair things that have ever happened to Puck, this is the only one he’s resented. He checks his phone, and somewhat miraculously, it’s almost five, so he hauls himself off the bed and splashes water on his face, frowning at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Maybe a ridiculously expensive splurge dinner will make Puck feel better and also take care of the dark circles. Puck’s not sure how that’ll work, but it can’t hurt to try. 

The elevator on Puck’s floor is taking longer than usual, so he wanders across the hall, heading back to the bay when he hears the familiar “ding.” Puck’s still distracted when the doors open, now thinking about what size steak he’s going to get on top of everything else, so he walks right past him when the doors open, but he’d know that figure anywhere, every when it’s walking away. 

“Fuck. Finn!” 

The figure turns back, and it’s real, _Finn’s real_ , standing right in front of him. 

“Puck!” Finn’s face breaks into a broad grin. “You found me!”

Puck realizes the doors are closing, and he frantically stabs at the buttons on the panel until they open back up again. Then he’s on Finn or Finn’s on him, he’s not sure, but they’re hugging, Puck’s fingers digging hard into Finn’s back. It takes Puck a minute to figure out that he’s laughing, too, a hysterical noise that’s halfway to a sob. 

“You’re here. You’re _here_ ,” he whispers over and over, in between laugh-sobs. 

“Yeah. Yeah I’m here, Puck. And you did it. You found me!” 

Puck shakes his head frantically. “You’re the one who got off the elevator at my floor.” 

Finn starts laughing, too. “Oh my god, Puck, it’s my floor too.” Puck snorts. 

“This is crazy. Am I dreaming? Am--” He pulls away from Finn but grabs his hands, staring at Finn’s face. “We’re both here, right? In this hallway? On earth and not dead?” 

Finn shakes his head. “Not dead. Either of us. I promise. Come on.” He drags Puck down the hall, not letting go of Puck’s hand, and lets them in his room one-handed. “You did it!”

“So you keep saying. What did I do? Wait, was this planned?”

Finn shakes his head, but he looks really sheepish. “Okay, promise you won’t be mad?”

“I thought you were _dead_ , Finn. I think you got a free pass on stuff for decades,” Puck says, raising an eyebrow. 

“Okay,” Finn takes a deep breath. “I’m not dead.” He grins when Puck makes a face. “Mom knows. I couldn’t--I wasn’t able to tell you, but I needed your help.” Finn lowers his voice. “I called Bill about a month ago, right after we found the letters. I know I should have told you or had you call with me, but I was at Mom’s house and I thought if I didn’t do it, I’d chicken out. He said he knew people who could help, but we’d need two independent signatures on the form, and I knew if I _told_ you, you’d go with me.” Finn shrugs. “So you had to find it on your own. You saw how shady everything was. It would’ve looked so suspicious, Puck. We could’ve both been in serious trouble if the--” Finn lowers his voice even more “Bill told me to let Ellen handle everything. I’m sorry, Puck. I’m so sorry, you don’t even know!” 

“Hey, it’s fine,” Puck says, squeezing Finn’s hand. “Your dad--everything’s getting fixed. That’s what matters. We--you’ll be able to get an apartment, even, and you can go to college wherever you want. And your dad’s name--” Puck shakes his head. “ _You_ did it, Finn.”

“I missed you so much. I’m so so sorry.” Finn puts his free hand on Puck’s shoulder and runs it up and down his arm and across his chest. “I missed you so much you can’t imagine.” 

“Uh, I think,” Puck says, laughing, “I might have _some_ idea.” 

“Oh. Oh yeah.” Finn flushes red, but he’s grinning, and his hand stops exploring, curling around Puck’s tricep. “I had this weird thought while I was gone. It’s dumb, I think.”

Puck raises an eyebrow “You’re not dumb and I’m sure _it’s_ not dumb. Tell me.” 

“Okay, well. I sort of felt like before I left maybe, uh, you and I were, you know, headed somewhere.” 

“Somewhere _not_ on a road trip to DC, right?” Puck says, grinning wrly. 

“Yeah, jerkface, not DC. A _relationship_ somewhere.” Finn’s blush spreads even farther, creeping under his collar. 

“Well that works out pretty good for me, then,” Puck says.

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Well, I was thinking we were headed to a relationship somewhere, too,” Puck says, and he leans closer to Finn, bringing their joined hands high on Finn’s thigh. 

“Oh, cool. Yeah that does work out pretty good, then,” Finn says, sliding the hand on Puck’s tricep to the back of his head and bringing their mouths closer. 

“Lucky us.” 

The kiss is both unhurried and frantic, their hands running all over each other’s arms and backs and their knees bumping each other trying to get closer. Puck grips the back of Finn’s neck and lowers them down to the pillows, rolling them so Finn’s on top. They kiss for long minutes like that, pressed as close together as possible, until Puck realizes the light coming in is looking hazy. 

“Mmm, we should eat something,” he says almost apologetically, and as if on cue, Finn’s stomach makes a “rrr” noise. 

“Oops?” Finn grins, not looking the least bit sorry. 

“I think,” Puck says, “we’ve had a long week. Maybe for one night, we could be heading toward dinner.” 

“That sounds good to me,” Finn says, literally rolling off the bed until he crashes on the floor. He springs back up, the sheepish grin back. “Secret agents deserve steak too, after all.” 

**Fanmix** :

[For download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/bd01gduwnw1k2dz/looking%20for%20a%20landslide.zip?dl=0)


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